


You Are Enough

by Robertdoc



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robertdoc/pseuds/Robertdoc
Summary: Amity knew only bits and pieces of Luz's human life. When it all fully comes together for her at a book club meeting that shows Amity how...familiar Luz's loneliness had been in the human realm, and her even more familiar ways of hiding it with a smile for the benefit of others, she can't let it go on.She has to tell Luz what no one ever bothered to tell her. What she was never brave enough to tell someone else. Which could pave the way for both of them to say more things the other desperately needs to know too.One shared truth above all.
Relationships: Amity Blight & Luz Noceda, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 16
Kudos: 481





	You Are Enough

Funny enough, such a serious and sad conversation – at least at first – started with uncontrollable laughter.

Technically, it started when Luz was officially invited inside Amity’s library hideaway, with permission from Amity herself, for the first time. Then the fun part started when Luz made a solemn vow not to touch anything without permission this time, which drew more laughter from Amity than she intended.

Not that making her laugh, or hearing her real unguarded laugh, could ever be a bad accident. Especially now, after a marathon Azula Book 7 theory session that left them too out of breath and almost out of mind not to laugh out of their…whatever the Boiling Isles had for gourds.

In any case, it was the kind of laughter Luz never would have imagined – despite her hopes even then – to hear from Amity last time she was here.

Even though the last time was the first time she ever heard Amity laugh. At her. Well, not at her like she did those first few weeks, but with her. Because of her. In spite of what they were running from, what she got her into, and what Luz…did to her.

Even then, Amity let her see something different inside her. Something she tried so hard never to show anyone else. Now all these weeks and months later, when Luz really and truly understood why that was, and had seen Amity really and truly start to show so much more to her and everyone else…to the point of letting her come back here and share what she never should have already seen….

“Oh boy…if only two months ago Luz could see me now,” she said to herself. Only to once again realize her ‘speaking to herself’ voice wasn’t as quiet as she thought.

On the off-chance Amity still wasn’t ready to laugh about it, she tried to deflect and follow up with, “Say, there’s no time travel magic for advanced students, is there?”

“Not that I know of,” Amity answered with confusion, and a mental note to file that question away for her future Emperor’s Coven self.

“Okay then, so two months ago Luz will have to stay ignorant. I mean, even more so,” Luz laughed off. “But it’s not like she has anything on four months ago Luz, right? Or one year ago Luz, two, three, four…all the Luzs who never had any friends at all to do this with in person, really!”

Once more, in a feeling so familiar she really should have known how to avoid it by now, she realized well after she stopped talking that she said too much.

Too much not worth thinking about in here, anyway. Too much that really shouldn’t bring down a perfectly wonderful Book 7 fantasy session with a perfectly wonderful – or rather, if only she could accept more often how wonderfully imperfect she was – friend.

A friend she never could have had before. And not just because of the whole different realms and different social classes thing. Way way more than that….

…not that this was the place, or realm, to think about it. Before she absolutely had to….as she eventually would have to…but enough about that!

Unfortunately, the look Luz finally noticed on Amity’s face said something different.

The free, unburdened – adorable also popped into mind somehow – look on Amity’s face was gone. Stupid Luz for taking it away with her dumb thoughts on the dumb, friendless past….

….and future too.

“Wait a minute,” Amity interrupted Luz’s silent brain words out loud. “Never had any friends?”

At this moment, neither one of them knew why Amity was latching onto this. Was continuing to. Yet neither one had any capacity to stop it.

“I figured you had a few friend groups in the…lower ranks at human school. Like when you started here,” Amity continued, unable to stop herself even after her cringe worthy start. “Are you seriously suggesting you didn’t have…”

Now Luz couldn’t stop herself from interrupting. With a smile and a laugh she just…couldn’t stop herself from putting on.

“Let’s just say, if you thought you got trashed for hanging out with me here, you’re lucky we’re not there!” Luz exclaimed, with a smile that really needed to be interpreted the way she intended.

It’s not that she was afraid. Not exactly.

The Amity who looked down on people as unpopular as her was gone. Well, if not totally gone, fading away enough that this couldn’t be enough to bring her back. But if there was even one slim chance of it after knowing exactly how unpopular, how socially toxic, how…way too much Luz was back there and probably still was here…

And yet…since when had lying to her and trying to be something she wasn’t really worked out when it came to Amity? At least not before putting her through so much trouble she didn’t deserve first? As if there wasn’t enough of it she had to deal with without her?

“Why would I be lucky?” Amity interrupted again, her face slipping further from unbridled joy and into a more familiar “stop wasting my time because I’ll just find out anyway” frown.

There was no defeating that. Perhaps no prolonging the inevitable in so many ways.

But if Luz had to do it, she would at least put on a smiling face. It had held for her in front of others for this long, anyway.

“Oh, you know,” Luz attempted to laugh. “You would have missed out on years of me playing by myself, jumping on lunch tables to fight imaginary dragons by myself, starting clubs with no members by myself, throwing birthday parties for myself by myself, reading books that were the closest thing I had to friends by myself….I mean, who needs to see that? Obviously no one else did, right?”

Luz’s hopefully convincing laughter echoed through the room. Two seconds of silence afterwards was far too much, so Luz continued to do what she always did, no matter how much damage it did to her. Keep on going without anyone’s permission.

And without thinking what she was about to unleash.

“And the real punchline? Even the only person who’s ever really and truly loved me with all her heart…turns out I’m too much and too weird for her too! But if she thought that Luz was too much and too weird then, she has no idea what she’s in for soon! At least that makes one of us, right?”

“But at least I already knew no human would ever like all of me before! After I have to leave all the demons and witches who did, it should be easy enough to remember forever and ever! Right?”

Luz couldn’t let herself hear the answer. Couldn’t let herself see it, or anything. As if she could see anything through her tearing eyes.

She turned around and closed them, hopefully tight enough for the liquid in her eyes to go right back in. Before she gave Amity one more excuse to get a head start on things and kick her out.

Humiliating herself in front of someone who surely didn’t like so much sad, depressing, gooey emotion – at least in others – was already excuse enough. Proving once and for all how far beneath her she was, to the point where she’d probably crawl back to her loathsome cliques of old just to wash it all out…

…reminding her Luz would be gone soon and it was already all for nothing in the long run…showing her what a bullet she dodged…

Making her realize if Luz had never been enough for one single human – not entirely, even for the one – how did she fool herself into ever thinking she was enough for the most brilliant young witch in the world?

Luz certainly had no excuse for deluding herself. So she waited. Waited in silence until Amity either started laughing at her again, or just guided her out of her room for good this time.

Yet the silence dragged on. No rejection, no mockery, no disgust…not a peep from Amity.

Maybe she didn’t hear her. Maybe she wasn’t listening. Maybe she didn’t want Luz to make an even bigger scene in her most private place, after she’d already made enough of them. Maybe she’d wait until they left to break the news.

Yeah, that made more sense than anything else. Which meant there was no need to speed up the process with more icky sadness. This was a place for Amity to escape such things, and she’d desecrated it enough already.

So until it was safe for Amity to stop pretending, Luz would keep pretending for the both of them. She would put back on a smiling face. It had held up in front of others this long.

“But, that’s just me!” she declared. “Let’s get back to the other stories in here, eh?”

Once Luz’s eyes were clear, she stood up and turned around, only briefly glancing at Amity before she focused on her bookshelves. Books were much easier to look at, anyway. They always had been.

At least their illustrated looks of disappointment, shame, mockery and being way too weirded out were fictional.

So Luz went the tried and true method. Rambled about potential books to read next, blathered on before anyone else could shut her up, dug herself in deeper by still being too much of a crazy weird nerd to handle, kept doing it anyway to avoid seeing that for a few precious seconds longer…

Bought herself a little more time before someone far too special to handle her showed her disgust in her…

“NO!!”

There it was anyway. Perhaps it was better to get it over with now.

Since this rejection would be the second most painful in Luz’s entire life, maybe getting it done faster would keep it from threatening the first. Or something like that,

So Luz turned around. Only to be grabbed by the shoulders so she couldn’t turn back around. To be greeted by a look of something…wilder and more desperate than she’d seen from any Amity before.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Amity knew bits and pieces of Luz’s human life. She knew right from the start she couldn’t have been popular, although her reasons for assuming it weren’t sound. She and the entire school knew what she feared most once she left, although adrenaline and…other subsequent activities made it harder to dwell on it later.

But hearing Luz put it all together like this, then react to it the way she did…it gave Amity one of the worst possible, yet increasingly familiar feelings.

That she knew nothing at all.

Even when it came to something she was convinced she knew with greater and greater certainty these last months. Something that made her feel so many things she couldn’t face for so many reasons.

The assumption that Luz was nothing like her.

Yes, they were already alike in ways Amity hadn’t dared to dream she could find in another person. Not since she was five years old. But those were in good ways, like Azura and reading and sports and dancing and…other such things.

Not like this, though. It couldn’t be like this. Not for her.

Not for a bubbly, smiling, peppy, brave, annoying – adorable also popped into mind somehow – girl who should in no way ever look…as lonely and scared as Amity always tried to tell herself she wasn’t before Luz came.

There was no way this girl could have been hated by an entire realm. Most of it for the first few weeks, maybe, but eventually…no, there was simply no way. No way this girl, of all girls, could have been so soundly and completely rejected by an entire realm of beings.

Not among those who had more than a few weeks to see what else she was besides irritating. Certainly not among those who knew and raised her for an entire lifetime.

Yet if Luz was telling the truth, and she usually was when she wasn’t in the middle of her own mistakes…

Amity didn’t know what to say. She knew what she felt, however, which was the entire problem. And not in the increasingly usual way around her. This was far worse than that whole problem. Far more serious.

She felt so, so horrible that she knew exactly what Luz was feeling right now. What she apparently always felt deep down behind those smiles, those crazy plans and all those other irritatingly wonderful things about her. But it was so much worse.

Amity deserved to feel like that the last nine years. It was her own choice. Leaving aside the recent thoughts in her head about whether it was really her choice. Which was pointless, since every rotten thing she did to others after that choice was her own, so she still deserved it. Surely.

Luz, on the other hand.

Amity hid every part of her that deserved to be mocked and rejected. Leaving aside the recent thoughts in her head about whether they really deserved to be. And all the evidence, and gifts, of the last several weeks that suggested they didn’t.

But that made it worse too. Someone as underserving as Amity got those gifts after a few weeks of being better. Luz had certainly been so much better for so much longer, and if she’d still gotten nothing for it until coming here, what sense did that make?

What sense did any of it make? The idea that this person never had anyone see who she really was and still want to be around her? Not until a bunch of demons, outlaws, and witches who didn’t know any better in so many ways until she showed her?

The idea that Amity, of all people, got rewarded as one of the only beings in any realm to accept the sheer gift of Luz Nocedo’s warmth and love – like?!

That someone with such warmth and like could have been as lonely, and friendless in every way that counted, even longer than someone like Amity? It made no sense at all, and yet the proof of it had her back turned to her because…

She didn’t think she was worth being comforted. That her problems and feelings were worth listening to. Were anything other than a burden. Weren’t worth trying to get more than scraps of affection from people who…weren’t worth it themselves for so long. Maybe not until they knew what they had missed and accepted what they really wanted for so long.

If it was anything like that, then…oh, Luz….

Amity really didn’t know anything at all. Which still wasn’t as bad as not knowing what to say at all. Even when she really needed to say something.

Of course, she had to discover there were far worse ways of being tongue tied around her than…other recent ones. Yet this was far more serious, involving things Amity actually needed to say to her.

So just do it, then. Tell her how humans are even more backwards than she thought. Tell her it was all their fault if they didn’t want to be near her, and all their loss. Tell her how wrong they were to make her feel like she was the problem, when it was eventually so easy to see it wasn’t.

Tell her she should never feel like she was wrong to be who she was. Because who she was was nothing but extraordinary. If she’d really spent most of her life around people too dumb to tell her it wasn’t…

People as dumb as her, apparently. Because here she was, still keeping quiet about it.

All Amity had to do was tell her something heartfelt. Something remotely close to all the countless words of kindness, understanding, compassion and soul-healing generosity Luz had given her.

And yet when it was Amity’s turn to give a sliver of that back when she really needed to, she couldn’t make herself open her mouth. Even a simple ‘I’m sorry’, which was still too small for her, wasn’t coming out.

Such sentiment still didn’t come so easy to her. Not like it does for Luz. Or did.

Amity begged and pleaded inside herself to do something, anything to fix that. Admit something heartfelt and true for someone else, when it wasn’t a life or death struggle, for once in her life. Be anything close to the kind of friend Luz was. Anything close to the kind of person she thought Amity was, instead of the person Amity was foolish enough to start thinking she wasn’t anymore.

All because of a person too valuable for two worlds. So why couldn’t Amity stop being one of the mindless, cowardly fools who never told her that?

“But, that’s just me! Let’s get back to the other stories in here, eh?”

And just like that, her window had closed.

Just like that, Luz had gotten up, turned around and headed for Amity’s bookshelves. Babbling again over something Amity was barely listening to, all with a voice and a smile…

Far too fake. Far too unbearably familiar in its fakery. Far too designed to convince all those around her – including herself – that she was okay and none of her real problems were worth facing or healing anymore. That she wasn’t worth facing or healing anymore.

And that was what broke the griffin’s back. That was a step way too far. One that did not belong on her.

Not her – not Luz.

Never her Luz.

“NO!!”

Amity sprung into action before it was too late. Grabbed her shoulders although she was already turning around. And then…

No. Not nothing. Not this time.

One more time, one last time, Amity pleaded silently inside herself to come through. To not be silent when someone needed to know they didn’t have to suffer in silence. To be someone they thought they needed to be for anyone to put up with her.

Just this once, please let her stop it before it starts….

And then she opened her mouth.

“Please don’t do it. Don’t be anything other than you because you think that’s better. For you or anyone else. It doesn’t work as long as you tell yourself it does…”

Luz wasn’t arguing. Or denying it was what she was doing, or telling Amity she shouldn’t be doing this for her. So Amity kept going while she still had the chance and the courage.

“You be as weird and aggravating and as sad as you want, because you want to be. Even if no one else wants to see it, or you think no one wants to see it, don’t hide yourself away for them. Eventually the luckiest people in any realm will want to see it all. They already have!”

Luz still wasn’t stopping her. Whether because she was shocked or because she really believed Amity, she didn’t know. Now that the floodgates had opened, this was the next big thing to figure out.

Amity then remembered an approach that had worked before. Under circumstances now only slightly more dire than these. “Repeat after me, okay?”

Luz still didn’t say a word. But her mouth quirked up ever so slightly. Closer to the way it should be up.

Somehow, Amity let her thoughts about her mouth stop right here. This was too important. So much was too important.

“I want you to say the words ‘I am enough’”

“You are enough.”

“That is not –”

Once the familiar feelings of irritation washed over Amity, and once she realized how refreshingly familiar they were this time, she saw the even more refreshing sight of Luz looking bashful at her own idiocy. It was either that or the other familiar sight of Luz looking triumphant when she got a playful rise out of Amity on purpose.

Either one would be good. Especially if she wasn’t merely pretending. Yet it did look more in line with the usual Luz after her pranking and moronic behavior. That would mean it was starting to work.

To be sure, however, they had to get more serious.

“Okay, just say it exactly like I am. Say ‘I am enough.’”

“I am enough.”

“I am enough.”

“I am enough.”

“That’s what I want you to tell yourself if anyone makes you think different. Say it like that. I am enough.”

“I am enough.”

“If anyone makes you doubt yourself at school, say it like that. I am enough.”

“I am enough.”

“If you…go back to your other school, and they make you feel like that, say it to remind yourself there were once people who did, and still do, believe in you. Say it and think of them. I am enough.”

“I am enough.”

Amity kept on going with more examples, some sillier and more serious than others, yet with the same closing message. The same message she was starting to realize she should have said over and over long, long ago.

To another precious girl who was always enough, then and presumably now. No matter what others let themselves believe…were bullied into believing. By others and themselves.

Amity kept saying all the things she should have said nine years ago, and for all those nine years since. All the things that maybe, just maybe, she stood a chance of saying to Willow for real one day. All because Luz saved them both.

To finish doing the bare minimum of returning the favor, this still needed a strong closing argument to bring it home.

“I know it might be extra painful to remember…better times one day. Remembering that one special time when everything truly special to you was special to someone else too…it doesn’t always do that much good. But that’s probably not true for everyone.”

Luz went back to being quiet, which was still too weird for her. Certainly not her best weird. However, the silence seemed like it was more out of understanding than sadness. Understanding in a way Amity would let herself dwell on later, if ever.

“For you, you should think and feel however you want. And if no one else thinks that’s good enough, remember when it was enough for the most wanted criminal in the world. And a former king of demons. And a human fanboy. And a witch who should have had a friend like you a long, long time ago.”

“Please promise me you’ll do that before anything else.” Amity closed, before either of them could wonder if the last example was entirely about Willow.

“I promise,” Luz assured anyway.

That could have well been it. That was probably enough to reassure them both, so they could both move on and not think about any of this until they were back home. So they could salvage what was left of the fun part of this outing.

Yet something inside Amity made her feel it still wasn’t enough. She’d been more sappy and touchy-feeley than she’d ever want anyone else to see, and more than she’d ever wanted Luz to see before today. Nonetheless, it didn’t make her feel like she’d done enough. Said enough.

“I’m sorry, Luz.”

A few minutes ago, that was the inadequate bare minimum she could have said. Now it felt so much larger. More significant, if the suspicion of what she wanted to apologize for was true.

“That’s usually my move. What are you using it for?” Maybe that sounded enough like the old Luz to make this unnecessary. Or maybe some things mattered more.

“Because I’m sorry you…couldn’t always see yourself the way they see you. Like…”

Amity was almost out of it until that one last word. One word that needed more words to make sense. Some very revealing, very embarrassing words that were nowhere near appropriate in normal times, let alone this one.

But maybe she didn’t need to say those exact words. Maybe something kind of, sort of like but not quite those words would do. They would still be embarrassing and perhaps too spoilery for even Luz not to figure out, and were probably overkill to solve an already solved problem.

And yet…

Amity willed herself one last time for one last burst of bravery. To say something Luz would have already said without a second thought for her. Not those exact words Amity was still hiding…probably, maybe. But words that still showed something close to how important and special Luz was to her.

How much all of Luz – the happy side, the irritating side, and the sadder side she didn’t have to hide from her any longer – meant to her.

“…like I see you.”

Now it was done. Now all that remained was for Amity to close her eyes, look down, and buy herself a few extra seconds before judgment.

When those seconds passed and she couldn’t look at the floor any longer, she looked up and saw something she didn’t want to let herself expect.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Luz had taken all of Amity’s words in so far. Including the three big ones drilled into her head over and over. Regardless, those last four words hit her harder than any before them. 

To say nothing of what she did after saying them.

She didn’t know if Amity was cowering in fear of what Luz would say, if being that sentimental had taken too much out of her, if being that open was too much for her, or something else she couldn’t or wouldn’t guess at. Or maybe hope for.

Whatever it was, it made her heart soar and break at the same time like it never had before.

Soar because it was Amity who said that, and so much else, to her. Break because it never should have been something she’d been made afraid to do. Because she and her feelings never had to be something she was afraid to say.

And in spite of that, she still did it for her. Had been doing it for her all this time. For…Luz.

A human she had every instinct and occasionally every right to hate. A human who disrupted everything about a life she thought she loved at first. A human who shared nothing in common with her that she was willing, or able, to share back in public. A human looked down on by every single one of her more popular, brilliant, prestigious peers long before she came here.

Until Amity. Until fun, extraordinary, braver than she knew, heartbreaking Amity.

Amity, whose real true self never had a chance to be rejected by the outside world, unlike Luz. Who had time with a real true friend at one point before now, no matter how it was taken away – unlike Luz. Who now regularly took on years of mistakes, terrible influences and the cruelest fear of herself…all to let Luz be the first one in nine years to see who she really was. Who she knew she wanted to be again.

Who she was more than ever these last few minutes. For Luz.

Luz couldn’t put into words how special that made her feel. How valued. What it told her that powerful, vulnerable, special Amity could do that and kept doing that for…little old her.

That she was enough for it.

It was more comfortable, yet more heart wrenching, to think of how unfair it was that it took little old her to bring her out. That no one until her saw enough of that Amity to bring her out.

That no one until her would have cared to meet her. Cared to care for her. To make her feel as special as she made…

By the time Amity finally looked up, Luz had the biggest, closed lipped, teary smile she could muster, which said a lot right there. She had a bit less she could bring herself to muster out loud, but she hoped it was right to the point.

“I’m so sorry you couldn’t see yourself that way too.”

Luz brought herself into Amity’s arms before she could see her tears running down.

She wasn’t outright sobbing. She didn’t know what it said that such a loud girl could ultimately cry so quietly, save for a few sniffles. She didn’t know why it wasn’t louder when she felt Amity’s arms go around her without a word.

Or why it wasn’t when she thought about how in a few months, she may never be part of something like this again.

Nonetheless, Luz let her tears fall, kept her arms around Amity and kept her sobs under control. Not because she was afraid of what Amity might think if she didn’t. Because she felt safe enough to realize it wouldn’t matter to her either way.

Even if she wasn’t happy-go-lucky Luz for a moment, it wouldn’t matter. Thus, the need to cry that loudly was fading away.

Yet when she heard a few sniffles behind her – and conspicuous coughing right afterwards – it took a bit more effort to stay cool. However, she let it go on with no comment.

Not because she was afraid of saying more. But because it wasn’t what Amity needed right now. She needed to feel safe enough to let that out at her own pace, without any clumsy commentary. So Luz stayed quiet – not to hide herself or help Amity hide herself, but to avoid ruining the moment.

Maybe the best moment ever that didn’t involve magic. Fantasy magic, anyway.

When it passed, Luz wiped her eyes, gave Amity time to discreetly do the same, then let go of her. It still felt like words weren’t needed or would do more harm than good, so Luz went back over to the bookshelves. Picking out a book each for them, they both sat down side-by-side to read them, letting the silence become more and more comfortable as they let the written word finish calming them down.

After enough time, Luz took a glance at Amity, seemingly in a…not as rare as it used to be moment of peace. Her eyes calm and focused on absorbing new knowledge, her brow unfurrowed, her body language unguarded for once.

An Amity no one got to see for so long. An Amity she felt free enough to show her. An Amity she would someday feel proud enough to show the rest of this world.

Probably long after Luz would be able to see it.

Before she freaked out over what she’d miss and how she might never get to see anything like it again, she heard a much calmer voice in her head. Amity’s voice.

_You are enough._

Even if she couldn’t enjoy a life with real friends for that much longer… _You are enough._

Even if she couldn’t hide who she was and what she would hopefully become when it was over… _You are enough._

Even if she had to be friendless, unmagical, unworthy Luz again… _You are enough._

Even if no human thought so, there would still be a time when someone – a whole bunch of someones – did. Even if they could be taken away, that never could. _You are enough._

When she heard that message in her head again, it wasn’t in Amity’s voice anymore. It was in her own.

That would have been enough to end it right there. If not for the suddenly tight grip on her hand.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Right after Luz looked away from Amity, Amity sneaked a glance at her. Something she had mastered by now. But couldn’t do for that much longer.

Inevitably, Luz would go back to a land that clearly never deserved her, away from those who both did and…still didn’t, for all she was kidding herself. Who still didn’t have time to even come close.

But before she let that trigger the usual spirals, she heard a different voice than her usual inner panic voice. A voice far calmer, far sweeter and far kinder than any she could ever muster herself.

_You are enough._

Inner voice Luz said it again, even after Amity imagined losing regular Luz. Both after and well before she left. For reasons that couldn’t be allowed to come true.

But if they did… _You are enough._

But what if you – her – laughed at the very idea of… _You are enough._

What if Amity never got enough time or freedom to make everything right… _You are enough._

What if it really was impossible to be everything she ever truly wanted, both out there and in here… _You are enough._

What if she wasn’t brave enough, good enough… _You are enough._

What if she couldn’t, or wouldn’t… _You are enough._

She was, she was…

_You are enough._

Amity let herself hear it again and again. Let inner Luz tell her as gently and sincerely as real Luz. Let that Luz show off her magic powers of persuasion too. Let another Luz make her believe she was…

 _You are enough._ Wait.

That didn’t sound like inner Luz or any Luz that time. It sounded like…

_You are enough._

It was her. Herself. Amity. Or whatever the voice in her head was, it was now saying in Amity’s voice that she was enough.

And for the first time ever, it sounded believable in her own voice.

Enough to make her grab the nearest hand as her eyes watered again.

“Amity?”

Enough that when she recognized that voice, and the hand she was holding, it didn’t make her back away in terror. It made her quiet, but not because she was too flabbergasted to think of words.

_You are enough._

She heard it in her own voice again, and everything else felt…okay. Even holding Luz’s hand without a logical – or otherwise – excuse to cover it up.

She heard it in her own voice and was considering believing it, because of her. Because she showed her how and let her go the last mile of the way. Perhaps even far enough to…

“Hello, Amity?”

“Luz?”

No. It couldn’t go this far. Amity knew all too well why it couldn’t. Or told herself why she couldn’t, before her inner voice sounded so much nicer.

Still, there’s no way it could…that she could…but think of all the other things she couldn’t have done and still did. But if this was the exception, then Amity would be…

_You are enough._

Now her inner voice wouldn’t shut up. Another thing it got from Luz. Among everything else she got from her. 

From someone who needed Amity, of all people, to reassure her she was enough. What kind of backland realm made that necessary for her?

If it wouldn’t make it as obvious as it needed to be, then…

Then it all finally clicked. What else Amity’s…emotions could do besides destroy her when they got rejected.

If?

Before that, they could prove to Luz someone did see her. Someone saw how intense and overbearing she was, saw everything else too, and still wanted to see more. Someone wanted her to stay so, so much instead of being foolish enough to want her gone.

If no one had ever made that obvious to her already, maybe it was worth the risk to try.

There was still almost no chance it could work for everyone. But between Amity’s heartbreak and the chance for Luz to see how much someone valued her…the chance for her to know much everything she was and everything that made her Luz meant to someone…wasn’t that worth the risk? Wasn’t that enough?

One more look at a confused but eager Luz told her the answer.

“Luz?” she took one last breath before diving in. “Can I ask you a question?” Okay, so it wasn’t a complete dive yet.

But when Luz smiled her encouraging smile, regardless of whether she had any idea about Amity’s question…it was enough of an answer to go the last mile of the way.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Later on, when everything became clear, Luz would look back on that moment and realize how much of her already knew what Amity’s question would be.

And that she knew way before then what her answer would be.


End file.
